Maruti might restart production of A-Star and SX4

Maruti Suzuki, India’s biggest car manufacturer, on Wednesday announced that they might restart manufacturing their A-Star and SX4 at its strike-hit Manesar plant while the ongoing tussle between workers and management still continues.

Maruti Suzuki announced that after seeing their Swift production exceeding its normal levels, they now do plan to restart A-Star and SX4’s production at their Manesar facility. They told they would be starting the production in one week.

Maruti today did dispatch around 625 units of Swift hatchbacks from Gurgaon and Manesar plants.

On average, the company does produce 1200 of Swifts, SX4 and A-Star daily from Manesar plant. The Manesar plant has about 2500 workers with 950 being regular employees.

At the moment, around 1100 workers are working at 2 Manesar facilities, and the company would still continue to up the workforce in Manesar facilities.

The ongoing feud between workers and management still continues without a definite resolution yet with the management failing to restart fresh talks between the workers and management.

Maruti had ordered around 350 trainees to restart working in 3 days after recent talks held through the intervention of Haryana State Government failed to yield a result.

As we know, the contract workers and management had been engaged in an altercation since 29th of August at the time when management didn’t allow workers to enter the factory surroundings until they agreed to sign the ‘good conduct bond.’ The agitation got worse when workers tried to deliberately sabotage components and prevented cars to effectively be dispatched to dealerships on time while the cars stayed back in the factory for repair of damages. There were reports that the workers even tried to loosen the doors of new cars, sabotaged wiring hence preventing shipment of these cars on time.

The contracted workers felt the management’s decision was based on pure revenge when they went on a strike for 13 days. The workers, however, had demanded a new union to be recognised called MSEU (Maruti Suzuki Employees Union) at Manesar.

On Sunday, the three workers’ representatives who were in detention were freed on bail.

Maruti Suzuki is already facing a huge crisis this festive season with improper production of its most wanted car, the Swift. Now the statement released by the company says they were indeed exceeding Swift’s production and now looking into re-starting production of A-Star and SX4. The ‘good conduct bond’ is by no means doing any good for the company when workers feel they’re being forced to sign an illegal bond and are opposing the moves made by the management.

Moreover, the intervention of the Haryana Govt has failed to yield a result between the workers and management, and the management hasn’t re-started talking to workers after that. Maruti also has plans to setup a new facility in Gujarat with Suzuki overseeing its proceeding with more than 50% stake in the company. Earlier this month, Suzuki’s CEO did visit Gujarat for a possible plant setup there.